Reckoning Pt 3
by Rose7
Summary: Terry's life is put into perspective as he realizes the curse of Batman.
1. Ancora

I'm beginning to understand one of the reasons, though not the primary, that Wayne had to quit.  
  
I force myself to run faster, ignoring my arthritic joints and heightening blood pressure. There's a kid in front of me, running as fast as he can to escape. Even though he's a dumb, inexperienced kid, he's by no means a slow one.  
  
My knees scream in agony as I make a 10 story drop to the next building. Even as I land I have to take 10 seconds to rest.  
  
I don't have 10 seconds. The fact that I'm getting old isn't helping out here, where you need to be better than your best all the time.  
  
I ignore my aching limbs and continue the chase. Even though I feel the intense beating of my heart and the wheezing of my lungs, the guy in front of me sees nothing but a gigantic bat, and he's still terrified. He looks back to see if I've caught up, trips and falls to the ground. I walk up to stand over him. He trembles with fear, although he still glares at me in a last ditch effort to seem like he's not scared.  
  
Wonder if he'd still be scared if he knew there was a 65-year-old under the mask.  
  
I grab him by the collar and just stare at him for a minute. By now I don't have to say anything witty or make fantastic feats of acrobatics to impress criminals. I've gained that all-important aura of danger that Wayne had, and now they look at me and want to run away.  
  
"Don't hurt me!" He whines, trying to get me to let him go. Normally I would just let a pathetic kid like this go.  
  
But he just slashed someone's throat in an alley. All for a couple of credits. I can't let this one go.  
  
"Why should I?" My voice is eerily calm.  
  
"I'll never do it again! I swear!" He's lying of course. By now I can tell when someone's truthful or not.  
  
I walk over to the edge of building, holding him over it. The kid begins sweating bullets, thinking I'm going to drop him to his death.  
  
"You're right. You won't."  
  
"I should have never gone up against Batman. I should have known that someone so powerful would catch me." The kid says, trying to suck up to me. I don't bat an eyelid. I let the kid drop. The kid lets out a bloodcurdling scream for the 5 seconds that he's in the air and then swallows it in surprise as he lands safely on the fire escape below him.  
  
I turn and begin to walk off. I don't need to fly. I've learned that there's no reason to be in a hurry out here.  
  
And I allow myself the smile that I had to repress with a criminal- the smile at the fact that he shouldn't have gone up against Batman. 


	2. Dubbio

Seems like I spend half of my time in graveyards.  
  
I'm either watching someone get buried, or visiting someone who was buried.  
  
But I should be used to it by now. Hell, I've been visiting this particular grave for 35 years.  
  
"I still don't understand why you want to do this every year." Lydia murmurs. "He's probably laughing at you right now for standing over a pile of dirt and mourning him." Lydia shares the same distaste for cemeteries that Ben did.  
  
Ben might be laughing at me, but it's never going to stop me from making my yearly visit.  
  
I stare at the gravestone for a second more, then stand up and turn to Lydia.  
  
"We can go now." Lydia wipes a strand of gray hair out of her face and pulls her coat tighter around her.  
  
"We have to meet the girls soon anyways." I follow her to the car and we go back to Wayne Manor. Somehow the old castle is still standing up, even though it's seen centuries of death, bad weather, and just plain use.  
  
Eh. I've seen just as much and I'm still standing, even at the ripe age of 65.  
  
"Where have you guys been?" For a second I try to figure out which one of my daughters said it, but then I listen to the demanding quality of the voice and I know immediately that it's Molly.  
  
"Out." Lydia responds. Molly doesn't question it. She and Lydia think on the same wavelength, whatever wavelength that might be.  
  
"I'll take your coat, Dad." Rose, my other daughter, says, rushing over to take it off for me.  
  
Sometimes I don't know where Rose came from. She might be Molly's twin, but she's about as different from Molly as a person could get. She's nothing like Lydia and she's nothing like me. Nothing about Rose is any kind of human quality. She's like some angel who decided to grace our dysfunctional family with her presence.  
  
They're both 34 by now, and I've missed the majority of their lives too. This time around, though, Lydia wasn't on me everyday about it. And I made sure it wasn't everyday too.  
  
"Take a seat." I murmur. Rose immediately does so, but Molly roams around the room, inspecting things like she hasn't spent half of her life in this house.  
  
"How's the baby?" Lydia murmurs. Rose smiles down shyly at her stomach.  
  
"Fine."  
  
"And your husband?" Rose blushes. Sometimes she acts like she's fifteen.  
  
"He's fine too." Molly laughs loudly and unexpectedly.  
  
"And what about your-" Lydia pauses, searching for a word. She decides not to finish, her eyes narrowing. Molly glares out the window.  
  
"I don't need him and neither does Warren." The name of her son was about the only thing Molly decided to take from her family. Lydia glances at me, shaking her head. We only recognize our own faults when we see them in someone else.  
  
"Why wouldn't Warren need his father?" Rose asks, staring at Molly. Molly stares back for a minute, then starts laughing again.  
  
Rose is naïve and selfless. She married someone naïve and selfless, and her children will be naïve and selfless. But I love her because she's the embodiment of what I fight to protect.  
  
Molly, on the other hand, didn't marry, probably never will, and rejected Warren's father as soon as he made one mistake.  
  
"So, Dad, I saw Batman make another triumphant victory last night." Molly says, making a swift change of subject, a devilish look in her eye.  
  
We decided the hell with hiding Batman: they would have found out at some point anyways. But we both resolved- me included- that neither one was allowed to have any part of it. Which was fine with them. Rose hates violence even if it's in the name of justice and Molly just thinks the entire thing is the wrong way to go about catching criminals.  
  
Wayne would have thought they were uncooperative, stubborn women. I think they're both half-right.  
  
"I wouldn't call it triumphant. Routine, maybe."  
  
"Don't you think you're a little old to still be playing that game?" Molly says.  
  
Game? There's nothing playful about that job.  
  
"I almost got hit by a couple of stray bullets. I wouldn't call it a game." Molly sighs, about to launch into her tirade about the absurdity of it all.  
  
"You wear a costume, Dad. You fly around like you're half bat and break the law more than the criminals you catch do. What's worse, you act like you enjoy getting the crap beaten out of you every night and try to get us to be glad that you do."  
  
Sometimes Molly irritates me because she's exactly like Lydia used to be.  
  
"Well don't worry. You don't have to be glad for me and you'll never have to be involved." I sigh.  
  
"And I don't want Warren involved either. Don't you try and lure him in with your exciting tales of adventure and crime." Molly adds, half- jokingly. I find myself glaring at the floor because I can't bring myself to glare at her.  
  
They don't know how Ben died. They don't know that he was Robin. All they know is that they had a wonderful older brother, and he died tragically, but we never told them just how.  
  
"I'll never try to make anyone live that life. Ever." I answer in a low voice, and even though Molly never thinks she's wrong, she senses that perhaps she's said the wrong thing.  
  
An uncomfortable moment of silence passes.  
  
"Well, we'll see you at the end of the week." Rose says softly. She doesn't say much, but when she does it's exactly what's needed to be said. They both rise and exit the house. Lydia moves closer to me on the couch.  
  
"Maybe we should tell them." I shake my head.  
  
"No. They wouldn't understand."  
  
"He made the choice to be Robin Terry. You didn't make it for him." Lydia says the word 'him' like its some higher being, the way priests talk when they speak about God- always capitalized.  
  
"I know." I reply, getting up to go down to the cave, to begin another night of dressing up in a costume and running around acting like I'm half-bat.  
  
But I just lied to Lydia. I don't know that I didn't make the choice for him.  
  
I don't even know that I made the choice for myself. 


	3. Soltanto Mortale

Office parties. I hate them almost as much as funerals, but not quite.  
  
Wayne dragged me to a couple in my youth. I hated them then because I didn't understand anything that was going on and because they were boring as hell. I understand them now, but they're still boring as hell.  
  
You can't even really call them parties. They're more like a trial where everyone is the defendant. Lydia smiles at me from behind a tray of hors d'oeuvres.  
  
At least I have someone else in this momentary prison with me.  
  
"Terry!" I roll my eyes as Paxton Powers strolls over to me. He's not the careless young fighter anymore. Now he's more like his father, trying to take you down quietly and subtly. He can't do a thing against me personally, but he's becoming more and more slippery in terms of taking over the company.  
  
"This is a very beneficial soiree you have here. Some prime investors have managed to show up." I glance around with him, totally uninterested.  
  
"Shouldn't you be off courting them then?" Paxton glances at me. His hair's completely gray, but he loves the effect of looking like his father. The only advantage I have over him anymore is that people remember Bruce Wayne more fondly than Derek Powers. Other than that we're evenly matched.  
  
"I would, Terry, believe me, but you see they only attended this party because it was held at Wayne Manor." He leans in closer.  
  
"Meaning they remember the glory days, the days of Mr. Wayne. " He's mocking me.  
  
"Also meaning that they want to talk to you, the inheritor of this museum of nostalgia." He finishes.  
  
Yeah. Like I'm going to further torture myself by chatting up a bunch of investors, listening to their mindless spiels and giving half-hearted ones of my own.  
  
"Sorry Paxton. I have to be a gracious host and make sure everyone's having a good time. It wouldn't look very good for the company if I ignored everyone else, now would it?" Paxton laughs cruelly.  
  
"You're CEO, Terry. You don't have a choice. Besides, it's all for the good of the company. A very large company that Mr. Wayne trusted to you. You wouldn't want to betray his trust, would you?" I have no contact with Paxton outside of Wayne-Powers, but 46 years of fighting have gone by and we've gotten to know each other pretty well. He knows exactly which buttons to push.  
  
Of course I can't let down Mr. Wayne. Have to do it right, have to do it the best. Have to do it just as well as he would have and have to make sure I never abuse everything he gave me.  
  
I hand my drink to Powers and head toward the investors, hearing him chuckle as I do. He used to fight for control over stupid things like this. Now he lets me have it all, doesn't call meetings every week to try and disprove every move I make. He just lays low, making his own quiet plots around me, knowing that he doesn't have to fight and if he doesn't do these things, I have to do them, knowing that I hate corporate responsibilities and because of this hatred I'll make a slip-up sooner or later.  
  
And I allow myself one guilty little thought in the back of my head, behind all the responsibility and the trust that's been placed in me.  
  
I'd like to make a slip-up. I wish I could allow myself to mess up with something that used to be Wayne's, and just let Powers have it.  
  
But I can't, and Powers knows it.  
  
***********************************************************  
  
I crouch on the top of the building, at first watching the reflection of the red bat on my chest in the moonlight, then watching the gang below me.  
  
It's amazing how I can make such a swift transition, from one suit to another, in the space of a few hours.  
  
I watch the leader of the gang laugh like he's having the time of his life and point up at me. He calls himself and his gang the Crimefighters because he thinks it's cute. They spent their time finding criminals, stealing what those criminals stole, and then beating the hell out of them.  
  
It's not THAT different from what I do, but I'm still chasing them.  
  
They turn around as they run and fire at me. I dodge most of their shots, but a couple are disarmingly close.  
  
I miscalculated. Can't miscalculate out here.  
  
I race across the buildings, towards the edge, ready to make a jump to the next building. When I was a mere citizen, that jump would have looked suicidal to me. As Batman, it's just a small step.  
  
I leap. Don't land on the other side. My fingers grasp the edge of the other building, and I hang for a moment in the air.  
  
Too many mistakes.  
  
I pull myself up and continue chasing them. For a second I lose sight of them and stop on top of a building.  
  
Can't lose them. Once you have them, you can't lose them.  
  
I spin around frantically, looking in every direction. Then I feel a large object slam into my back. I fall to the ground, more from shock then actual pain.  
  
I roll over and look up. They've got me surrounded. Another mistake. I begin to fight them off, but there's five of them and they're all trained.  
  
Have to beat them. Have to win.  
  
I have a couple of ribs broken. I hesitate for one second, wondering why the suit didn't protect me. They take advantage of the second- another mistake- and pound into me even more.  
  
Ribs broken but have to keep going. Wayne kept going with bullets in his arms, broken bones, internal bleeding. Have to keep going.  
  
I finally get four of them unconscious, but the leader's still up. The leaders are always stronger than the rest. He begins to run, but I'm not making another mistake tonight. I leap over in front of him, barring his path.  
  
Then he pulls out his gun and fires. I find myself unable to move, frozen in stupid silence that I made such a gigantic mistake. I manage to adjust my position by about a hair before the bullet rips into my shoulder.  
  
Pain. Horrible, horrible pain courses over me. All the time, I never felt a single blow out here. The suit protected me. Now I see blood flowing down my arm, feel like half of my torso's missing.  
  
Have to keep going. Have to beat him.  
  
I charge him, and he falls over with a loud cry of surprise. It takes a couple more minutes of struggling before I have him down too and I stagger off to hide from the police. I don't really have to hide from them, but that's Batman. Batman's never seen. I can't be seen either.  
  
I feel hot tears rolling down my face as I gasp, clutching my shoulder. It's ripped through the suit, leaving a small hole where there once was a protection from pain. It probably doesn't hurt as much as I think it does, but when you haven't felt physical pain for most of your life, your perception of it is off.  
  
Wildly off.  
  
No. I have to stop. Wayne wouldn't be resting. Wayne would definitely not be crying. He wouldn't even notice. Just a flesh wound to him.  
  
I want to move, but I can't when I think that if I hadn't moved by a hair, that bullet would be residing in the middle of my chest, probably happily nestled somewhere in my heart or lungs.  
  
I could have died. Been exposed as the great Batman, sadly and easily stopped by a single bullet. I could have just died, on the top of a building in the middle of Gotham City. I would never see Lydia or my daughters ever again.  
  
It's a reality that I've just realized. Batman's not the great infallible, unstoppable thing that Wayne believed and taught me to believe. All these years I haven't really been invincible out here, I haven't been the continuation of something immortal.  
  
Batman can be silenced by one bullet. That's all it takes. And then where does that leave the man inside of it? 


	4. Mani al minimo, lavoro del diavolo

Everyday I think about Ben.  
  
It's not like I can't handle the fact that he's dead. We all have to die. We're all mortal, even me, like I found out last night. It hurt a little more that he chose to die, but I can even accept that.  
  
It's a bit harder to get over the fact that it was my fault and I could have prevented it.  
  
I sit in the living room, staring off at some abstract spot on the floor, feeling the silence of the house and hearing my own thoughts much too clearly.  
  
Coming close to dying made me wonder how the hell Ben could do it. Standing on the top of a building, that Gotham wind blowing around him, almost threatening to toss him off whether he wanted to jump or not. Looking down over the edge and seeing the great mass of pavement and tiny little people, feeling the height and danger of where he was.  
  
Hearing nothing in his ears but the screams of his parents and the smack of his father's hand hitting his mother's face.  
  
And then to go up to the edge and simply take that final step that made that mass of pavement come rushing up to meet you- how could Ben have brought himself to do it?  
  
I could have so easily prevented it. If I had kept it together, not pushed him into Robin, causing the last great fight Lydia and I would ever have, the fight that would end Ben forever.  
  
But I was too concerned with the fact that Lydia messed up Robin, and consequently messed up Batman. It wasn't so much me that was upset with her. Batman, however, was enraged.  
  
It sets one thought into my head, one that I could spend the rest of my life mulling over.  
  
If I wasn't Batman, would my son have lived?  
  
"Terry?" I look up. Lydia stands over me, grinning.  
  
"Daydreaming again. How's your shoulder?" I try to ignore the stiffness in it, the fact that I can barely move it and smile at her.  
  
"It's nothing Lyd. I've had worse." Lyd rolls her eyes and sits down next to me.  
  
"Worse. You have your own definitions of what's bad and what's worse, and they don't come close to anyone else's."  
  
"Neither do yours." I reply quickly. You have to be quick with her if you want to get a word in. She gives me that old glance she always gives when she underestimates me and leans her head on my shoulder.  
  
"Every time I see you you're sitting somewhere, staring into space. And I doubt the sections of the wall or floor that you keep your eyes on are that interesting. What's going on in that head of yours?" Lydia's sole purpose now that she's older and realized that she has a perfectly good family is to try and take charge of everyone in it. Sometimes she sounds like my mom when she talks to me rather than my wife.  
  
"I'm thinking. Or daydreaming if you want to call it that." Lydia rubs her finger on the gray areas of my hair, like they're specks of dirt that she can wipe away with her hand.  
  
"What do you think about?" She says more softly, more in that confidential tone that you can't have with your mom.  
  
"What I've done." Lydia narrows her eyes.  
  
"You sound like a man who's condemned to die. You haven't done anything." Eh. I guess not. Only saved thousands of people daily from inevitable destruction, led a falling, corrupted international corporation back to its glory days, and raised a family.  
  
"I mean the choices I've made. Or choices I haven't made."  
  
"What are you talking about, Terry?" Lydia says, sitting up.  
  
"I'm wondering if I've ever made my own choices, or if they've all been made for me." I feel the lost dreams, the unwanted realities trying to rile me into feeling sorry for myself. Lydia frowns.  
  
"You have regrets?" She says in Italian. Lydia never once cared whether or not I understood what she was saying in her language. She would just say what she wanted to, and I could either learn to understand or ignore it.  
  
Over the years I learned to understand.  
  
"No, not regrets."  
  
"But you wonder what might have been. What kind of a life you could have, if only certain things had not happened." It sounds so horrible and ungrateful when she says it, makes me out to be a brooding child that hates everything around him and was forced into all of it.  
  
But I can't help it. If I hadn't taken the 49% at Wayne-Powers, if I hadn't continued being Batman, if I had quit, what would I be doing today? Where would Lydia and I be?  
  
Would Ben still be with us?  
  
"This isn't you. You've never given any of this a second glance or a moment's hesitation. Why are you so worried about it now?" Lydia says, watching as my eyes wander back to that familiar spot on the floor.  
  
"I don't know Lyd. Maybe that's my problem. Maybe I should have given it all a second glance. Maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to forget everything except what Mr. Wayne would have wanted." Lydia leans back on the couch, running her fingers through her hair.  
  
"It's a little late for this midlife crisis, isn't it McGinnis?" It's easy for her to say. It only took the death of her son to make her get over the giant hurdling post in her life.  
  
"It's not a midlife crisis. It's realizing what I couldn't when I was younger."  
  
"You talk like you're a hundred years old." Lydia replies softly.  
  
"Sometimes I feel like I'm a hundred years old." I answer back.  
  
"You have a family Terry." This is the most important thing to her. And if I have a family, she can't possibly see a reason why I would be unhappy. Lydia takes my hand, studying it like the fantastically interesting relics she dug up for years in remote corners of the globe. "Your dreams were always to live up to what people expected of you. You wanted to be the good kid your parents wanted, to be the flawless Batman Wayne wanted. You've accomplished both. You're doing what you love." I get up from the couch and walk towards the window.  
  
Gotham City seems like it never saw a day of sunlight. Like it lives perpetually in rain and darkness. The thunder and lightning outside, despite the fact that it's only 2 o' clock just proves my point.  
  
"That's just it, Lyd." I reply, watching the rain fall.  
  
"I'm not so sure that I love it." 


	5. Incubo

"Lydia!" I yell as I walk in the door, tossing my briefcase on the table. She never comes running to greet me, but she always responds by yelling 'Terry' louder than me.  
  
It's one of the funny things about her. She always has to be louder, tougher, smarter, better in everyway.  
  
I don't get the answer, but instead the phone rings.  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Mr. McGinnis?" I wish that just once I could pick up the phone and hear a friendly voice say 'Terry'. But it's like I've lost my first name ever since I entered this house.  
  
"This is he."  
  
"Your wife, Lydia, was checked into Gotham General Hospital a few hours ago. We need you to come down here right away." Normal people would panic and rush. I take my time.  
  
There's nothing wrong with Lyd. Nothing ever happens to Lyd.  
  
She probably scraped her arm and didn't feel like putting a bandage on it. She probably ran around with that open wound until someone insisted she do something about it.  
  
It's exactly the kind of reason Lydia would be in a hospital, because there's no other reason. She doesn't get sick, and she doesn't get into accidents. It's just something Lydia doesn't do.  
  
I wander down the white, immaculate halls of the ER, remembering the last time I was here it was for something good, for the birth of my daughters.  
  
It's a better memory than all the times I was here with Mr. Wayne.  
  
I reach Lydia's room, although I wonder why they bother giving her a room at all. You'd have to hog-tie Lydia to get her to stay in a room. A nurse stands outside of it. She catches sight of me and looks incredibly nervous.  
  
"Mr. McGinnis?" She murmurs.  
  
"That's me. Is Lydia in there?" The nurse hesitates a minute. It's either this girl's first day, or I've become too much like Mr. Wayne- intimidating everyone I meet.  
  
"Yes, your wife's in there, but she's asleep. I need to tell you a few things first though." I crack a smile. Lyd probably did something incredibly foolish again. She broke a leg on a dig once because she wanted to test the booby traps in some ancient pyramid. Later on she explained to me that if anything serious had happened to her leg, she still had another one. Lydia's always doing incredibly foolish things.  
  
"Your wife collapsed on her way to work this morning. Some of her colleagues had her sent here." Even Lydia has to get old sometime. She's probably gotten some normal physical weakness that eventually gets everyone. Of course, in true Lydia-fashion she'll pretend it doesn't exist.  
  
"What was wrong with her?" The nurse takes a deep sigh.  
  
"At first, sir, it was thought to be normal arthritis, or something else of that nature. However, we did some tests-"She stops and sighs again. This nurse does a hell of a lot of sighing.  
  
I feel slight waves of panic creeping into my body.  
  
"What is it? Is she going to be all right?" I manage to stay calm, despite the fact that I'm trying desperately to convince myself that there's nothing wrong with her, that there's got to be a mistake. There's never anything wrong with Lydia. It's just not part of the order of the world.  
  
"It's very serious sir." Serious? What the hell could possibly happen to Lydia? She wouldn't allow anything serious to happen to her.  
  
But I recognize that feeling of tightness I get when I know something is truly wrong. And I hate that feeling because it always means something bad is about to happen.  
  
The nurse opens her mouth. If she sighs one more time, I swear I'll break her neck.  
  
"Maybe we should go somewhere else and talk sir." I stare straight at her. I never understand why people say 'let's go somewhere else and talk about it'. Like the news is going to be any less severe if we go to another room.  
  
"What's wrong with my wife?" I growl. She jumps at the sound of my voice, but I'm through being patient.  
  
"Your wife has contracted a disease known as Sense Dehabilitation Disorder, or SDS. The various senses of the body, from sight and hearing to smell, taste, and physical feeling, begin to break down and fail until the entire central nervous system collapses." That's insane. Lydia cannot go blind or deaf or lose the ability to feel her hand in mine. Lydia would not allow such a thing to happen to her. It's a setback, that's all, and it'll disappear.  
  
"At this time sir," The nurse sighs one last time.  
  
It'll get better. She'll be cured.  
  
Right?  
  
"We have no cure."  
  
This can't be happening. Lydia cannot be dying. It's as ridiculous as saying that the earth is the center of the universe.  
  
Lydia is the calm and fearless center of her own universe.  
  
She's also the calm and fearless center of MY universe. And I've just been told that she's going to slowly and painfully die.  
  
I feel an arm clench onto mine, and I open my eyes to see the nurse supporting me. I realize that I just fainted into a chair.  
  
"Are you all right, sir?" Yeah. Lydia, the one unflinching, constantly steady rock in my life is going to die and I'm all right.  
  
"No." I reply.  
  
"There's something we can do. There has to be something we can do!" I yell. People walking through the halls glare at me like I'm interrupting the serenity of the hospital.  
  
"Sir." The nurse says, frightened but firm.  
  
"There's nothing we can do. I'm sorry." She turns and walks away.  
  
This can't be happening.  
  
I immediately charge into Lydia's room. She lies in the bed, eyes closed, the hand on her stomach moving gently up and down as she breathes.  
  
See? There's nothing wrong with her. She looks fine.  
  
I try to convince myself of that, but I know that ignoring what you don't want to hear won't make it go away.  
  
Lydia opens her eyes.  
  
"Terry." She says, giving me her small smirk.  
  
I've always had this. Even through Wayne-Powers, Batman, and everything else in my life, I've always had her and I've always had the little things she does, the little childish competitions we have with each other. I've always had her arguing with me and simultaneously supporting me in everything I do.  
  
I feel a lump forming in my throat because I realize that I'm not going to always have her.  
  
Does she know? Does she have any idea that she's been taken over by this horrible disease, something that even she can't stop?  
  
If she doesn't, I can't bear to tell her. But while I sit there, wondering how to tell Lydia that she's going to die, she does what she's done her entire life- beaten me to it.  
  
"It's bad, isn't it?" She murmurs. I nod.  
  
"I'm not going to die, am I?" Lydia says, laughing. I almost cry. I've cried more than any man I know.  
  
Then again, I have more to cry about than any man I know.  
  
I say nothing, and Lydia's face goes pale. She stares down at her slightly wrinkled hands for a moment.  
  
"They told me what it was, but they didn't bother to tell me that it was going to be the end of me." Lydia's voice hardens. She fights things with anger because that's how she always wins. But when you know the outcome, what's the point of fighting it?  
  
I take Lydia's hand, watching her face go through several emotions as she frantically tries to find one that's not going to make her seem weak.  
  
"I'm sorry, Terry." She finally whispers. She's apologizing to me for having to die.  
  
This can't be happening.  
  
I force the tears back into my eyes, refusing to let them fall.  
  
I can't be weak either. Have to be strong, have to be mature. Have to be like Wayne and like Dad, who were able to face their greatest fears and never flinch.  
  
But the difference is that theirs were never realized. Mine take place before my very eyes. 


	6. Non Può Farlo

Have to keep going.  
  
I smash my fist into the thief's face, knocking him out with one punch. I feel anger, self-pity making me stronger than I'd normally be.  
  
Sometimes anger helps in this line of work. Other times it clouds your judgment.  
  
But it's always a good way to release it.  
  
Out here you have to ignore your personal life. You have to forget that you have a personal life.  
  
And even though Wayne's primary rule was that you shouldn't even have a personal life, I still have one. I could never agree with him on that issue. He was the prime example of what would happen to me if I did forsake everything in my life for Batman.  
  
I respected the hell out of Wayne, but I don't want to end up a recluse in a cave.  
  
I want to go home. I want to get out of this cold November weather, get away from the pounding and the beating.  
  
I hear a scream from an alleyway.  
  
Unfortunately, Gotham City has decided that now is the time for a wild crime spree. It's like they know every pivotal moment of my life, know when I don't want to be out here, and plan their crimes accordingly.  
  
Never a problem for Wayne. He never put anything or anyone above being out here.  
  
Of course, it never really was a problem for me either. Until I started getting that guilty, nagging feeling every time I drag myself out here, force myself to fight, do it all half-heartedly.  
  
Have to forget that Lydia's dying. Have to forget that one day I'll have to come home, take off the mask, stumble back up the stairs to reality and not have Lydia standing there, with a ready smirk and her usual dry wit.  
  
Have to keep going.  
  
I finally make it home around 3:00 am. It seems like I'm out later and later the older and more tired I get.  
  
Eh. Maybe it's just my imagination.  
  
I crawl into bed. Lydia immediately opens her eyes. The later I'm out, the later she's up.  
  
"You're going to drive me crazy, McGinnis. I'd like to get to sleep at a reasonable hour." She murmurs. I sigh, closing my eyes.  
  
"Believe me, so would I." I should be here. Where I am now. But I should not be ending up here at 3 in the morning.  
  
"How are you?" I say, leaning over her. Lydia wipes a drop of my sweat off her arm.  
  
"Good thing I can't smell anything anymore or I'd make you go back into that cave." Small goose bumps run up and down my arms.  
  
"You can't?" She smiles.  
  
"Don't look so devastated. It's not that large of a loss." If anger fails to keep Lydia from any kind of weakness, Lydia uses indifferent humor.  
  
I want to say that that may not be a large loss, but the loss of her will be unimaginably horrible. That I'll miss her more than anything in the world. That I miss her already despite the fact that I'm still with her.  
  
You can't say that to Lydia, who respects nothing but self-sufficient support of others, which makes no sense. Then again, neither does a lot of things that happen to her.  
  
"I'm sorry." I say, trying to sound sincere.  
  
'I'm sorry' never sounds sincere though. It's used so casually and so impersonally nowadays that it loses all meaning. It becomes a stock answer, something you say to fill the silence when you don't know what else to say.  
  
"I need to go back to Italy." Lydia murmurs, starting the story like she usually does: without any warning or apparent relevance.  
  
"You miss it?" She scoffs.  
  
"I'd kill- well, maybe not kill. I'd horribly maim to go back there." Lydia hasn't spoken of Italy since high school.  
  
"So let's go. It's not like we're short on money." Maybe short on time, energy, life expectancy.  
  
"No. You don't do that to your family. You don't come back after so long just to tell them that you're going to die." She shudders for a moment, but whether it's from the draft in the old manor or the thought that she's never going back to Italy I don't know.  
  
"What did you mean the other day when you said you didn't know if you loved it anymore?" I close my eyes. I'd hoped she'd forget. Hell I hoped I'd forget. But neither of us did.  
  
"Loved what?" Lydia laughs.  
  
"You know what I mean. Getting the hell beaten out of you. Being out very late every night. Why wouldn't anybody love that?" I shift away from her uncomfortably.  
  
"It's too late Lyd. I need sleep."  
  
"You can sleep when you're dead, McGinnis." She replies softly.  
  
Or rather I could sleep when she's dead.  
  
"Fine. I'll talk about it."  
  
"Fine. Then answer my question. Why do you think you don't love this anymore?" I shove myself up against the headboard, feeling my elbows shake from the sudden action.  
  
"I'm getting old." She rolls her eyes.  
  
"No kidding. You're lying if you're going to tell me that's the reason."  
  
"It's getting old too."  
  
After a while, everything becomes routine.  
  
"I know you're bored with fighting kids, but you've done your job too well. There are no better criminals out there. You've got no one to blame but yourself." She replies.  
  
"Lydia, I don't mean that I'm sick of the standard cracker-jack purse snatchers. Just the whole thing, the whole idea of it. It feels like I've been fooling myself all these years into believing that I loved it, because Wayne loved it." I don't even know. I hear myself giving her the answers, and each sentence sounds more ludicrous than the last.  
  
I'm supposed to love it. I'm supposed to be Batman, defender of cities, protector of thousands. I'm supposed to feel the rush of the fight and savor the witty comebacks. I'm supposed to be Bruce Wayne's heir, calm, cool, collected and a shining testament to everything he was.  
  
And every moment that I don't I feel like a completely different person, like I stole all this from the real Terry McGinnis and I'm constantly acting like he would without the true emotion that he would have.  
  
"Forget it. I don't want to talk about it anymore." Lydia stares at me for a moment, something in her eyes that I would classify as hurt on anyone but her.  
  
"Forget Batman, Lyd. I'm Terry."  
  
Batman and Lydia never got along very well anyways. 


	7. Idolo

Being the boss is a horrible job.  
  
It's not like I'm not grateful for the million dollar paycheck and the prestige.  
  
But I've got to make decisions that affect thousands all over the world, calculate the reactions and plots of hundreds of investors, keep Powers and the Board of Directors appeased, fire, hire, and fire again.  
  
The worst thing about it is that you're constantly under a microscope. I feel that all too well when I'm alone with Paxton Powers.  
  
"Mr. McGinnis, I see some serious flaws in this proposal." Powers murmurs from his chair, glancing up at me with that scrutinizing gaze of a hunter trying to decide whether to let the deer go or to slaughter it before it runs.  
  
"First year flaws." He adds. I play with the paperweight on his desk.  
  
"Hmm?" I heard him perfectly, but it's more fun to keep acting like that infuriating 17-year-old who stole the company from him so long ago. Powers sighs, exasperated.  
  
"I don't have time for this." I stand up, juggling the paperweight.  
  
"You don't have to have time for it. The purchase is going through. You're just being notified." Powers takes the paperweight out of my hands and tosses it on the desk.  
  
"The investors may respect your decisions, but they won't for long."  
  
"And why not?" Powers opens up the portfolio again.  
  
"This is a big gamble. You're spending a hell of a lot of money on the off chance that you'll make all of it back." He almost sounds concerned. How touching.  
  
He can't understand why anyone who's been fighting to keep this for so long would so carelessly risk it.  
  
He doesn't know that I'm not fighting to keep it anymore. I'll do my best to make it stay legitimate, powerful, and alive, but I've got no interest in keeping it.  
  
"You mess this up, and they'll never trust you again." Powers says, barely containing his excitement at the thought.  
  
I watch him for a moment.  
  
Powers and I have a slight respect for each other. I respect his devotion to his father, despite the fact that his father was the devil incarnate. I'm also very grateful that he's never going to be his father. He respects the fact that I won't let him walk all over me and that I've been a more than worthy opponent.  
  
But we still hate each other.  
  
And I don't give a damn if the investors trust me or not. I get up and exit the room.  
  
I feel like I'm an actor in a play that I just can't get into.  
  
I wander past the offices, picking up pieces of conversation as I do. Hundreds, thousands of employees, all with their own lives, own concerns, seeing me as just the faceless deity they're forced to pay homage to.  
  
Mr. McGinnis is the greatest boss. Mr. McGinnis has come a long way since his high school days. Mr. McGinnis reminds us of the Bruce Wayne era. Mr. McGinnis has a knack for business decisions.  
  
Mr. McGinnis is slowly having every piece of him chewed up and spit out.  
  
*************************************************************  
  
I walk into Lydia's bedroom. A couple of weeks ago she was forced to take an indefinite leave from the archaeology she loves, shoved into bed, and forced to sit and think of nothing but her impending death.  
  
Needless to say I spend as much time with her as possible.  
  
Lydia lies in bed, looking angrily down at her thinning body.  
  
I watch her for a minute, feeling the pity and depression you only get when you see the greatest minds in the world reduced to nothing but babbling idiots simply because of their age.  
  
"Stop looking at me like that." Lydia mutters darkly.  
  
"How am I supposed to look at someone who's dying?" I realize how cold and insensitive it sounds after I've already said it.  
  
"I'm not going to die."  
  
They say there are five stages of death: denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, and acceptance. But Lydia is going through them backwards like she does everything else.  
  
"Course not. You've never done what anyone told you to do. Why start now?" My joke is lost on Lyd, who just glares at the floor. I sigh and walk over to her.  
  
"I can barely see you." She says, squinting to emphasize.  
  
Lost her sense of smell, lost her sense of taste, and now her sight's going too. What kind of hellish death would this be for someone who lived alone?  
  
"You always said things aren't ever what they appear. Isn't sight a better thing to lose than hearing?" Lydia rolls her eyes.  
  
"Since when did you become such an optimist?" Since Lydia started dying and it became my responsibility to keep her from going insane from becoming weak.  
  
But I say nothing.  
  
She sighs and gives me a small smile.  
  
"You are the most patient person I've ever met, Terry McGinnis." She says softly, with maybe a bit of shame at her own frustration.  
  
Patient? Me? Doesn't she know that I'm wishing she'd just die so my heart would be put out of its misery and I can follow her into death? That the only reason I go out as Batman any more is to get pounded by a couple of thugs, get knocked senseless to see if I can get the sense back into my life?  
  
"You're being completely cheated and screwed over and it isn't fair." Any normal person would think Lydia was delirious. But I've learned to read between the lines, to hear the sentences she expects you to detect with completely different ones.  
  
I know I've been cheated. I've lost my father, my mother, Wayne, my son, and I'm probably slowly but surely losing my grip on reality.  
  
But you never tell someone who's dying that their death will just be the icing on the cake, the final blow that will knock me out for good.  
  
"I'm glad to have had everything I've had; no matter how short I've had it." Wayne would have been proud of how effortlessly I've learned to lie, especially to the ones I love. Lydia smiles again.  
  
"I'm still sorry. I've lived my whole life trying to be stronger than you, and I'm just now realizing that no one can ever pass you in that." This, coming from Lydia, who was disowned by her family, misunderstood by her husband for years, buried a son, and is now forced to watch her herself waste away into nothing.  
  
I don't know the meaning of the world compared to her.  
  
"You want to know a secret, McGinnis?" She murmurs. I lean forward conspiratorially.  
  
"I've needed and depended on you for nearly all of my life." I'd laugh if Lydia didn't sound so damnably sincere, so incredibly convincing. But you can't take Lydia expressing emotion so nakedly in a light-hearted manner. It so rarely ever happens.  
  
I sit there, quietly digesting this one very well kept secret Lydia's finally decided to share with me.  
  
"Are you going to go out tonight?" She finally asks, almost timidly.  
  
"I have to. It's the annual 10 year crime wave. It's barely safe to walk around at night." Lydia picks out me from the dark shadows that her vision is filled with and fixes her eyes on me for a minute.  
  
"How long will you be gone?"  
  
"God only knows." Another moment of silence.  
  
"Terry," Lydia begins, "Don't go out tonight."  
  
"I have to." The answer is an automaton, something I've learned to say against births, deaths, important situations, anything. Nothing can go against the inexorable duty of being Batman.  
  
"But you yourself said you're starting to question it." Lydia's voice goes into a whining mode, pleading with me although she has a weak argument.  
  
I'm questioning it, but it doesn't mean I'm going to stop doing it.  
  
"I have to." There's no other justification. I just have to. Lydia sighs.  
  
"Then go." I get up, kissing her on the forehead.  
  
"I love you, Lyd." She closes her eyes. There's no point in looking around when you can't see.  
  
"I love you too, Terry."  
  
So I head down to the cave. I think nothing of it. It's another part of my day, like Wayne-Powers, like coming home, like anyone's normal day. The suit feels more like a uniform now, some bland cotton thing that is sweat- laden and discarded by the end of the day.  
  
I go through the motions. I fight, I win, I get tired and I head back home. For some strange reason I wander around the cave, stare into the same old cases even though I know what's in them and I know most of the stories surrounding them. I wander back upstairs, feeling more and more every minute like this is not my life.  
  
I wander back into Lydia's room.  
  
Lydia's lies sleeping in bed, looking both younger and more fragile both at the same time.  
  
"Lyd? Lydia?" I murmur, shaking her. Lyd doesn't move.  
  
Throat goes dry. Frighteningly similar memories play over and over in head.  
  
"Lydia." I say it one last time, even though I know it's pointless. Lydia can't hear me.  
  
Similar memories blend into the present until both are the same thing and I'm back at point A, in the gigantic circle I've been going through my entire life.  
  
And I don't cry, I don't scream or plead or continue futilely to shake Lydia or say her name. I don't feel like ripping my own heart out or throwing myself off a building. I don't feel anything, despite the fact that I'm sitting right next to Lydia's dead body.  
  
I only take off the mask, stare down at her weakened and completely empty body and think:  
  
How utterly fitting. 


	8. Annotazione Rotta

It's never the actual death that hurts anymore. Most pain is selfish pain anyways. Pain that YOU'VE lost the person, pain that YOU'LL never see them again. Very rarely is it over the fact that THEY'VE lost their life, THEY'VE been cheated out of spending time with you.  
  
What kills is the loneliness. The knowledge that they're gone, and you're completely alone. Wayne Manor, because of its inherent emptiness even when it's filled with people, makes you feel that 100 times worse.  
  
You can methodically and mechanically make the arrangements, watch the men pull the sheet over her head, watch the people who barely knew her kneel down by her coffin as if they did, watch the coffin get lowered into the ground, and walk away without shedding a tear.  
  
But there's no way you can wander around Wayne Manor, feeling how completely alone you are now that she's gone.  
  
I sit here, after the funeral, after wishing I could run screaming back to Lydia's grave, dig frantically with my hands, somehow conjure life back into her dead body, and I have plenty of time to think.  
  
It all goes by so casually that it's like it never happened. Lydia Meraviglia McGinnis died and was buried as if it all happened in 10 minutes. In reality it's been about a week, but who bothers to look at the time when this has been happening so regularly?  
  
Everyone argues that you have your daughters. Well. Isn't that grand? Isn't that just so fortunate?  
  
Everyone argues, nobody understands. Nobody understands like Lydia did that I'm always alone. I can be with hundreds of people, and yet I'm my own entity, in my own world, a world that is populated by me only.  
  
I'm alone because I'm Batman.  
  
I spent too much time at Wayne-Powers. Who gives a damn about the corporate bureaucracy? Who cares if the many documents are shredded and the toxic waste is dumped into the clean harbors of Gotham? Apparently I did.  
  
I got sucked into that vacuum because I'm Batman.  
  
I get up. I don't care where my feet take me. I'm slowly dawning on a realization that seems crazy, that Terry McGinnis would never believe, but that this new nameless being I've become knows that the realization will kill Terry McGinnis for good. And the being doesn't care, wants Terry to die.  
  
I missed lives being created, people being shaped, my own children's childhood and my wife's subsequent downfall because I was Batman. The perception I'm supposed to have gained was nowhere when I failed to see how fighting affected my son day in and day out. The skills I'm supposed to have learned haven't gotten me anywhere.  
  
I left Lydia to die so I could go save a couple strangers.  
  
I feel reason, logic, and normal mentality slowly leaving my body in a great release that's both a relief and a shock.  
  
I find myself back down in the cave. Every great moment of my life, it's led me down into this collection of woes and deep-throated revenge. That's just about the only thing that's ever come into or out of this place. Classic unanswered cries for revenge.  
  
As quickly and swiftly as Lydia left me, I feel my rage slowly being assigned to the one thing that I've managed to keep it away from for years.  
  
Batman.  
  
It starts slowly, like correct revenge does. I take a batarang and toss it haphazardly. It crashes into one of Wayne's many display cases. Those cases drive me crazy. Why would you immortalize this? Treat it like it's some kind of eternal conquest, that'll keep going on and on and being remembered as long as people live?  
  
How long did he expect this cycle of slow death and insanity to go on?  
  
The breaking glass cuts through both the silence and the tension in my body. I pick up some conveniently shaped stalactite. Feeling it in my hands makes me feel like some caveman with an animal instinct he can't control.  
  
What the hell. I've become little more than a common predator anyways.  
  
I begin smashing the computers, destroying the monuments, crushing decades of achievement in mere seconds.  
  
I expect myself to have some kind of out of body experience, to not know what I'm doing, to feel like I'm not in control of myself. Maybe then later on, if I come to, I can justify it to myself.  
  
But I don't. I'm in completely control of myself. I might not know who I am anymore, but whoever I am I'm making every swing consciously. And somewhere, in some little spot in the back of my mind, I've convinced myself that I'm not going to come to, that this state of cold emotionless stone is going to be me forever.  
  
Electrical components fly every where as I pound mercilessly into the machinery.  
  
How could he do this to me? Leave me in the throes of responsibility and obligation?  
  
How could Wayne just drop this world on my shoulders?  
  
How could he just pass this curse onto me?  
  
I find that I've broken or destroyed nearly every piece of equipment in the cave and search around wildly for something else to take revenge on.  
  
I see the suit lying on the table. I grab it.  
  
I'll destroy it. I'll kill it like it's killed me and everything I love.  
  
I fall to my knees. My fingers rip apart the material; savagely tear away fabric from circuit. The suit lies in pieces before me.  
  
I'm done. Done forever.  
  
I get up, heaving and running fingers through my graying hair, as if my body's just realized the superhuman destruction I've inflicted and it's rushing to catch up.  
  
I quit, Wayne. I quit, like I should have done years ago, like I should have done the moment you were gone, the moment my son died. Like all the times you told me to quit, even though deep down in your little Bat-heart you knew that I wouldn't, were paralyzed with fear when I almost did because it meant that you would have to quit too.  
  
It's over. Batman and I have murdered each other. 


	9. Pazzesco

I watch a spider make its web. It connects the long, white fibers from my bed to the wall, looking so precariously balanced and yet the spider never flinches. Slowly but surely it forms the intricate net, knowing every curve, painstakingly crafting every inch.  
  
Stupid spider. Why go through the trouble when it's never going to make a difference. Doesn't it know that with one swift kick, it's beautifully designed net can be demolished, all that work gone in an instant, and his own life finished without any dignity, without any pride, simply by being stepped on by someone bigger than him?  
  
These are the kinds of thoughts you have in the hospital's psych ward.  
  
They don't trust me with reading material; I might get ideas. They don't let me eat with utensils; I might harm myself. They don't give me as much as a single stick figure to look at. Too afraid I'll start thinking again.  
  
I guess I have to agree with them. I'm so beyond everything that I don't even think I'd recognize a rational thought if I had one.  
  
"Mr. McGinnis?" I glance up. One of the many faceless nurses stands in my doorway. I can't tell any of them apart. They come and go and go and come and I just nod and smile.  
  
"You have a visitor." I resist a groan. Not Molly. Not even Rose. I can't take Molly's constant glare, knowing that she thinks I'm weak, stupid, irrational, and a waste of time. I can't even tolerate Rose's entirely selfless, naïve, and innocent concern for my well being.  
  
To my slight surprise- nothing truly shocks me anymore- A young man enters my room.  
  
"Mr. McGinnis?" He says in one of those college boy accents, slightly cock-sure and slightly unnerved.  
  
Well. Here's some entertainment.  
  
"Do you notice anyone else in the room?" The young man keeps the slight smile on his face, despite my sarcastic attitude.  
  
"I'm Doctor Jake Doyle." He says, with more than a hint of self- righteousness at his title. I stare at his outstretched hand, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"I'll be your personal psychiatrist." He adds, a bit more hesitantly. I still stare at him. He finally gives up, blows a puff of air up against his brown hair, and seats himself in the chair next to my bed.  
  
"I see from your file that your daughters visit you a lot." He's bright, cheery, trying to boost my spirits. Hah. I'm almost cheered up by the thought that this kid can try as hard as he can but he won't cheer me up.  
  
"Do you visit your father?" I murmur.  
  
"I-"He seems slightly taken aback by the question. "I don't talk to my father." He says father like he's never muttered the word before, as unfamiliar to him as a foreign tongue.  
  
"You should. You might be gone before he gets a chance." Wow. I even sounded insane to myself with that one.  
  
"Mr. McGinnis, I-"  
  
"Terry. I've been called McGinnis enough in my life."  
  
"Terry. We're not here to talk about me." I half want to laugh and half cry for this kid, barely late twenties, trying as hard and pathetically as he can with his obvious first assignment. Too bad he got stuck with me.  
  
"You're absolutely right, Jake. We're here to talk about why I was found slitting my wrists." The fact that I can treat it in such a blasé manner almost frightens me.  
  
Almost.  
  
"So why were you?" Jake replies directly. Even if this kid's nervous and messing up at every turn, he's evidently determined not to let me push him around. Good. Maybe we'll have a coherent conversation then.  
  
Even if his asking was about as graceful as ax-murder.  
  
"No reason. If I had had a good enough reason, I assure you I wouldn't be sitting here." Possibly because the silence in Wayne Manor drove me crazy. Possibly because I'd throw myself out a window if I had to sit through one more meeting with the Wayne-Powers Board of Directors. Possibly I felt the sting of finding myself in a destroyed cave every night out of habit, possibly because I have the memory of my son and my wife following me around everywhere I go.  
  
Nah. No good reason.  
  
Jake Doyle whips out his pad of paper, writing furiously like every word I say is a possible part of my cure.  
  
"I understand your wife died a few months ago." He says, glancing up at me.  
  
"6 months. If you knew her or me, you'd know that I'd never attempt this because of her." Like I'd attempt to kill myself, the greatest weakness in the history of man, over Lydia's death. She wouldn't be waiting for me in heaven. She'd swear at me in Italian for being so ridiculous and sent me straight back down to hell.  
  
"Well I don't know her or you." He replies. I smirk.  
  
The spider crawls towards the open window, ignoring its finely drawn web, going towards bigger things.  
  
"But hopefully I will get to know you Terry." Jake continues. "You've been allowed to go home, but the doctors want you under constant supervision. My supervision."  
  
A strong gust of wind blows through the window, nearly knocks the spider down. Does the spider care? No. Spider keeps on going, keeps crawling on the edge of the window.  
  
"I've heard stories about you, Mr. McGinnis." Jake continues. "How you were the great successor of the legendary Bruce Wayne, how you single- handedly brought his corporation back to its glory days, and all when you were younger than I am."  
  
Spider clings to the edge of the window, realizing now that he can't fight the breeze like he can fight it while in the security of the room, the security of the web.  
  
"I know that you have two daughters, and you had a son. Somehow we'll find out why you've sunk this low."  
  
Spider can't hang on anymore. Keeps trying, if only just a little stronger- Nope. Breeze picks up the spider, tosses him out the window. Gone from his perfectly symmetrical web, lost forever because he could not fight something stronger than him.  
  
"Hmmm?" I murmur, looking back up at Jake. Jake Doyle sputters for a moment, staring back at me.  
  
"That's enough for today. I'll be at Wayne Manor tomorrow afternoon to continue." He finally says, with the dignity of a wronged professional. He gathers up his belongings and exits the room.  
  
I laugh. It starts as that low chuckle that was the only Wayne would emulate, then it grows louder and louder until there's tears running down my cheeks and I'm holding my sides in pain.  
  
Poor kid. He doesn't know there's no saving me. He doesn't know, like I've learned, that there was no way to save Wayne either. Batman's taken over our lives, our souls, sucked every root of ourselves out of us.  
  
Wayne never batted an eyelid when I said he was old, weird, obsessed, cracked up in the head. Probably because he knew that I would end up the exact same way. 


	10. Lo Schiocco Va Il

"Mr. McGinnis?" Dammit Wayne.  
  
I refuse to go out there. I have other things to do. Have to take care of Mom and Matty, have to watch Ben, have to see Lydia. Don't have time or patience to go out and do what you can't.  
  
I barely open an eye before I realize that that's a long far-off nightmare. This is reality.  
  
Jake Doyle stands over me, pad of paper in hand, face eager. I groan.  
  
"Morning, sir." Prompt and perfunctory, just like a drill sergeant. I yawn and sit up on the couch. At least I'm home, back at Wayne Manor, not stuck in that lily white box they call a soothing hospital room.  
  
"It's a bit early for the psychoanalysis." Jake sits in a chair next to me, ignoring my comment, surveying the room. He can survey all he wants. Not one thing in Wayne Manor will give him any indication of what I'm like. Every stick of furniture asserts itself as part of Bruce Wayne. I've never actually lived here- I'm more like a tenant in a boarding house.  
  
"How do you feel right now, Mr. McGinnis?" He says, turning back to me.  
  
"I feel as though I could strangle someone if they call me Mr. McGinnis one more time." Jake flinches, but only for an instant.  
  
"Well how do you feel right now, Terry?"  
  
"I don't feel like I'm Terry. Or Mr. McGinnis."  
  
"Who do you feel like?" An old man. A very old man.  
  
"I feel like I'm missing a good portion of myself."  
  
"How much?"  
  
"All of it." He writes it down on his little pad. I resist the urge to take both pad and writer and toss them out a window.  
  
Cooperate. Cooperate and they'll leave you alone.  
  
"What things were a part of you?" Normal guys would say Lydia, Ben, Molly, Rose, my job, my house, et cetera et cetera.  
  
The only thing that ruled my life and governed my decisions was Batman. And now I'm not Batman. It's a hard thing to abandon something you've given up your life for.  
  
Of course, I can't tell the kid this, so I feed him what he's begging for.  
  
"My wife. My children." Jake takes the bait.  
  
"What was your wife like?" Is, is is. Lydia IS my wife. 'Was' just makes it seem like she's died all over again.  
  
"Kind, patient, never complained." Jake stares at me for a minute.  
  
"No she wasn't." He says. I resist a smile. The kid's not as stupid as I thought.  
  
"You're right. She wasn't."  
  
"But I get the feeling that you wouldn't have married her if she was." I nod. How can you marry someone 5 thousand times better than you? You'd constantly feel that you were inferior, unworthy. That was one of the beauties of Lydia and I: She wasn't anywhere near perfect and neither was I.  
  
"She couldn't have been perfect if your son was born only a month or so after you married." Jake replies. I raise an eyebrow.  
  
Okay, so the kid's good at checking records. Wayne wouldn't be impressed. Why should I?  
  
"What exactly do you want, Jake?" He stares at me with some confusion, like I shouldn't be asking him any questions.  
  
"To help you."  
  
"And what if I don't need your help?" Jake eyes the layers of bandages on my wrist. They're at least an inch thick, as if the hospital believes that if I have enough padding I couldn't possibly find a way to end my life.  
  
"Don't worry. I'm not attempting that again." That's maybe the first true thing I've promised the kid since I met him. But I won't try to end it all again. People usually end it all because they see no point in life. I see no point in death either.  
  
"So why did you attempt it in the first place?"  
  
"Boredom. Disinterest."  
  
There's nothing left to do. Lydia's dead, Ben's dead, Molly and Rose are off in their own lives, oblivious to Batman and what he means to me. And I'm not Batman anymore. I don't want Wayne's house, Wayne's job, Wayne's millions. What's left?  
  
"Well, if you don't think you need help, why bother talking to me either?"  
  
"Boredom. Disinterest." Jake sighs in exasperation, then tosses the pad of paper behind the chair.  
  
"Why would a man with millions in riches, a fine home, two daughters, and a successful company get bored and disinterested?"  
  
"Because I no longer have a purpose, kid. There's no one here to hang onto or look after. And it's my own fault. What the hell does the rest matter?" He can't possibly know what I mean by any of the statements, that I'm no longer defender of Gotham City, no longer the Tomorrow Knight or Bruce Wayne's heir. That I sacrificed everything to become Batman and now I don't have the slightest inclination towards donning the suit.  
  
"And what was your purpose? How was it your own fault that you lost it?"  
  
"I'm Bruce Wayne's heir." I reply simply, getting up to wander around the room.  
  
"Yes. His company's doing better than ever; you've kept his fortune and his home maintained, so haven't you accomplished what that entails?" Hah. Like any of this crap meant anything to Wayne. He'd have burnt it to the ground if it meant he could keep being Batman forever.  
  
And Batman is the real thing I inherited, the real thing I was heir to.  
  
"You don't understand." I mutter.  
  
"Mr. McGinnis," Jake begins, impatient and annoyed, "How am I supposed to understand when you evade all my questions, refuse to tell me anything of importance, and make strange, disconnected, or false statements that have nothing to do with what I asked you?"  
  
Enough. I've had enough. I've destroyed every part of my life. I just want to be left alone to sift through the ashes, not be badgered on just how and why I did it by some snot-nosed college doctor.  
  
"Get used to it. I'm not planning on telling you anything."  
  
"What is it that is so harmful to you that makes you think you've ignored the rest of your life for, not lived up to what Mr. Wayne expected of you, and lost your purpose in life?" He snaps, not quite letting go of his professionalism just yet.  
  
"Leave me alone." I growl.  
  
"If you'd just trust me, I could help you!"  
  
Trust him? Trust this stupid kid with my life, with my secret? Wayne would be laughing at him. Laughing and then forcefully kicking him out.  
  
No one can help me.  
  
"I don't want your help. I don't need your help."  
  
"That's fine, because I think I already know your problem," Jake yells, restraint breaking into anger. "Batman." 


	11. Domande

For a second I want to yell back at the kid to mind his own business. What the hell does it matter that I was Batman? I'm not anymore.  
  
It takes a minute for the fact that this kid I've barely met KNOWS I was Batman. I feel the first degrees of shock ripple through my body.  
  
How does this college doctor know my deepest secret? He can't possibly be as intuitive as all that.  
  
More importantly, just what does he want out of it?  
  
Just lie. Play dumb, stupid, withering old man and pretend you have no idea what he's talking about.  
  
I take in a deep breath and turn around.  
  
"What?"  
  
"You heard me. That's got to be the reason you've degenerated into this." He says disgustedly. Oh no. Not an idol. I can't stand that hero worship, that ignorant reverence people hold for a guy who dresses up and spends every night beating up criminals.  
  
That and his tone has a certain degree of disappointment, like his idol wasn't what he expected him to be.  
  
"I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not Batman." It's technically not a lie. I'm not. Not anymore.  
  
"You were."  
  
"Just where did you gather this conclusion from?"  
  
"I did my senior thesis on Batman, Mr. McGinnis. With today's technology and the right amount of persistence, it's not too hard to trace things back to where they came from." Jake replies.  
  
For a second I feel the self-loathing that comes when you know you've failed yet again.  
  
Wayne rarely ever worried about being found out because he rarely ever was. How is it that there are nearly ten times more that know about me? What do I do wrong? How is it that people can find out my secret so much more easily than Wayne's?  
  
I guess the number of mistakes I made in my youth doesn't help.  
  
I stand in silence for a second, wondering whether to keep up the farce of lying to the kid or to just admit it so I can figure out what he wants and get rid of him.  
  
I choose the latter. What's one more going to hurt when I've already given up being Batman?  
  
"What is it that you want, Jake?" He senses my guard going down and walks over to me.  
  
"When I heard that you were in the hospital, I took the assignment because I knew I could help you." Why can't this kid realize that he can't help me?  
  
"You don't go out there anymore." Jake continues. "Why not? You're not that old."  
  
"Why do you care? What's your big stake in what Batman does?"  
  
"Batman's protected this city for over a hundred years. People feel that it's safe to walk the streets. He stands for everything good in this world, the good that people die for, live for. He's the crutch this city stands on. If he disappears, the city will fall again." I try the best I can to contain my laughter, but it starts to break out, in little spasmodic bursts and then back into that holding-your-sides-and-crying roar.  
  
Poor kid. Poor, stupid, misguided kid.  
  
I was like him once. Full of that same heroism and awe of Batman. Then I learned that being Batman meant that you would sacrifice everything, gain nothing, lose what you loved most, and in the end die alone.  
  
Sacrifices like that make you forget the hero worship pretty quickly.  
  
Jake stands, anger growing in his face, but saying nothing, waiting for me to stop laughing.  
  
"You don't understand, Jake. You can't possibly understand." I say in between laughs.  
  
"No, I don't understand. You had no reason to quit. You had no right to quit, to leave the city just hanging like that in a gigantic crime wave. You were Batman, the protector of millions. People looked up to you. It was your duty to protect them. And now look at you. Just some blithering old man feeling sorry for himself." For a second I get that primeval sense of rage that I had in the cave a couple months ago. The cold, unreasoning strength that could make me tear this kid limb from limb, bury his body in the yard, and then go out to lunch with my daughters. How dare he?  
  
I decide to refrain from killing him and instead whirl around, sensing how red my face has already gotten.  
  
"What right do YOU have to come in here and lecture ME about duty? To tell me that I have a responsibility to millions of STRANGERS, that despite whatever happens in my life, I'm supposed to just press on and keep fighting a battle that will never be won? Where do you get the balls to tell me that I have no right to quit? You don't know where I've been, Jake! You have no idea what hell is like!" This all I scream, bellow, shriek into his face at a volume that could possibly wake the dead. The kid doesn't move. He looks scared, frightened out of his mind, but he doesn't move.  
  
I shouldn't be yelling at him. The kid doesn't know any better. How could he know? How could I know, back when I was 17, that one day I would degenerate into THIS?  
  
I sit back down on the couch, rubbing my temples.  
  
"Why would you quit?" Jake repeats, his voice hoarse and cracking at first.  
  
"It takes everything away from you, Jake. My wife, my son, any ambitions I might have had, my entire life was consumed by it."  
  
I feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: half of me is shaking its head in shame, wondering the eternal question; What Would Wayne Do? You're ruining the trust he placed in you.  
  
The other half is beating its brother to death, screaming over and over; Who Gives A Damn What Wayne Would Have Done? He left a horrible, horrible curse for you to live out until you die.  
  
"Didn't it make you feel like you were helping someone? Didn't it make your life worthwhile?" This kid is too blind. I'll have to tell him the story. He'll have to know, and then maybe he won't fall into the same trap.  
  
I sigh.  
  
"It took everything worthwhile from me." 


	12. Colpa

Jake digests my statement for a while, mulling over it in his calculating brain, probably trying to figure out everything I mean without actually asking.  
  
"Why did you get married? It couldn't have been easy for you, being Batman and all." Any moron would say I married Lydia because I knocked her up. But Lydia and I knew that wasn't true. She never would have let me drag her to the courthouse if it was.  
  
"Because Lydia understood everything. She knew just how I felt even before I felt it. She knew me better than anyone." There's no way I could have married anyone else and still managed to be Batman for such a long time.  
  
Stubborn, hot-headed, and intolerant of weakness Lydia might have been, but she never asked anything more of you than you should have to give.  
  
"Lydia died of a disease called Sense Dehabilitation Syndrome. Do you know what that is?" Jake nods.  
  
"It means that after losing the superficial senses that she swore she didn't need, she slowly went blind, deaf, and lost all feeling in her body. The night she died, she had already gone blind and had lost half of her nervous system. Imagine the kind of hell that would be, unable to see anything around you, unable to even feel the bed you're laying in, and then slowly going into complete nothing when you stop hearing your own breathing." For Lydia it was ten times the hell because she hated the weakness that she couldn't control.  
  
Jake stares, not on the edge of his seat just yet, but getting there.  
  
"Now imagine the only person you have, your own husband, leaving you to go into that complete nothing alone." I finish miserably, dropping my head into my hands.  
  
It was my final sin because of Batman. I won't make another.  
  
"But her death wasn't because of Batman." Jake murmurs.  
  
"The fact that she died alone was." I growl. "I went out, ran around the city, stopped a couple of purse snatchers, foiled a couple of convenient store holdups, instead of staying with her when she needed me to."  
  
I can just hear Wayne's acerbic reply: We all have to make sacrifices.  
  
"If she was as understanding as you say, she would have known that you needed to go out there. That other people needed you. You didn't sacrifice her to save strangers. She probably could have kept you. She sacrificed you." Ah, kid doesn't know. Kid doesn't feel that pounding in your head, that feeling of obligation when you're sitting in Wayne's house, in Wayne's chair, your wife in Wayne's bed, your children being supported by Wayne's millions, that feeling that makes you drop everything else to do what he wanted you to do. Nothing could have kept me.  
  
"Do you know what I do for a living?" Jake narrows his eyes for a second, confused by the sudden change of subject.  
  
"Everyone knows what you do. You're the head of Wayne-Powers International."  
  
"That's right. You know how I ended up with that cushy job?" The kid nods, as if he's finally got it.  
  
"You inherited it." I glance around me, taking in once again the opulence of Wayne Manor, the fact that barely anything in this house actually belongs to me in the true sense of the word.  
  
And then I feel guilty. How could I not be grateful for this? I was willing enough to take it back when I was 17, living with my mom, my little brother, and my pregnant girlfriend. I jumped all over the idea that I'd never have to worry about money, a home, a job, anything for the rest of my life except for Batman.  
  
But then again, that's probably how Wayne wanted it. I wouldn't have anything else to concern me but the primary thing: Batman.  
  
"What would you have done if you didn't inherit all this?" Jake asks.  
  
Like I know. I've never had a chance to wonder before.  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Then why are you upset about it? You didn't have any plans for your future." When you're around people who are young, you feel younger. You act younger, you think younger, and you remember better what it was like when you were younger. When you're around older people, all you can think about is how old you are.  
  
But when you're around younger people, sometimes you pick up their impatience and temper too.  
  
"That's not the point." I snap. "The point is that I shouldn't have had my future decided for me. Even if I didn't know what I was going to do, I should have had to figure it out on my own. I shouldn't have had everything thought out and planned already, so I wouldn't have to do any kind of thinking for myself." Years of bitterness, years of dragging myself to the corporate world I hate comes to the surface until I feel like I could hate Wayne for leaving it to me.  
  
Jake runs a hand through his hair and smirks.  
  
"For someone who's supposed to be the protector of a city, you sure aren't thinking. No one held a gun to your head. No one forced you to take over all this. If you didn't want to handle any of it, all you had to do was turn it down. Why should you have to control something you don't want to control?" This kid is about the bluntest and direct psychologist I've ever met.  
  
"Wayne worked hard to get everything he did, even if I didn't. What the hell kind of person would I be if I just let his company get corrupted, his house sold to someone else, just forget I ever met him? If I didn't do it, who else would?" Jake raises an eyebrow.  
  
"Exactly."  
  
Well. Touché.  
  
We both sit in silence for a moment.  
  
"You wouldn't have suffered silently this long to quit now." Jake sneers, mocking me.  
  
"You don't know the half of it." I say blandly.  
  
"So what's the rest of it? What about your son?" My son. It's been so long since I had one that the memory of him seems like I dreamed it. It borders on that edge of a dream, when you wake up and you don't know if what you just saw was a memory of something real or a figment of your imagination.  
  
"My son died." I reply simply. The only way I can talk about Ben is to keep it simple, honest, and to the point.  
  
"How?"  
  
"He jumped off a building." The word 'jumped' sticks in my throat and comes out hoarse. Jake pauses before continuing.  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Because he saw me smack Lydia over a fight about him and decided to do something about it." The more plainly I state it, the more shocking the facts become. And the longer Jake sits in silence before going on.  
  
"Why were you fighting over him?" Because in my stupidity and my inexperience and my desperation for my son to love me I let him be Robin without teaching him the pitfalls of such a life and making him feel all the more inadequate that he couldn't measure up out there and then blamed it on his mother thus driving him to kill himself.  
  
It all blends together in my head in one long connected regret.  
  
"He wanted to be Robin. I let him. Lydia got in the way one night and we argued about it." I stop.  
  
"Have you ever felt like all you wanted was to measure up to your father, Jake?" Jake shifts uncomfortably in his chair.  
  
"I told you. I don't talk to my father."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I'm an orphan." Immediately I sense the hostility in him, the anger that he is one, and immediately I recognize all too late exactly what's wandered in to talk to me about Batman:  
  
Another revenge-seeking youth.  
  
"So that's it. Your parents are dead, gone, killed, whatever by some criminal that you know and no one else does. Cops won't believe you; friends won't help you, no family to go to. So you come to me, hoping I'll do something about it, right?" Jake shakes his head.  
  
"That's not it. I don't give a damn if my parents are alive or dead. I'm an orphan, not a wronged child." I should have known that those are the only types that are attracted to Batman. Troubled kids are the only people that can possibly fall into this line of work.  
  
I refuse to do what Wayne did. Just collect more and more of them until they all learn the truth and hate me for it.  
  
"Forget it, kid. I'm not helping you. You're not getting into the cave, and I'll be damned if you're going anywhere near a suit. No one's getting into that life. Not while I'm alive." Jake sighs, aggravated.  
  
"You aren't getting it. I'm not bent on revenge! I have no parents. I'm an orphan. They weren't murdered in front of me or anything. I'm not ruined for life. I just never had any and I never wanted any and I could care less about what happened to them. And why won't you let anyone live that life? What is so horrible about it anyways?" Even worse. A kid with no family or home that sees his home in being Batman.  
  
"Haven't you listened to a word I've said? Being Batman will consume your entire life! You can't have a life outside of it! It becomes your existence, your only reason for living. You practically forget who you are and become just another person to wear the suit!"  
  
"You had a life. I thought Batman wasn't allowed to have that."  
  
"He's not. I broke the rules and I should have realized that you can't have both." My problem was that I already had one the moment I became Batman. I should have abandoned one of them. I practically did, but I abandoned the wrong one.  
  
"I don't want to be Batman, Mr. McGinnis. I have no inclination to put myself what you've put yourself through." Jake says firmly.  
  
"Then you agree with me that it's no kind of life for anyone."  
  
"No, I don't. It was a good enough life for you for a very long time. It was a good enough life for everyone before you."  
  
"It was good enough for Wayne because he didn't have anything else. I did. He shouldn't have let me do it. And I shouldn't have let my son." I don't realize that there's tears going down my face until I feel them splash onto my hands.  
  
"Batman needed his Robin, "I continue, ignoring my weeping. "And I ignored him most of his life until Batman needed him, and then I just let him go out there, endanger his life. I knew all he wanted was to live up to my expectations, and I still let him to try to live up to them when I knew he would either do it or die trying. Then I hit my wife because I was upset that she wouldn't let Robin fight just like Batman did, and he died because of it." Even to this day I'm convinced that I didn't smack Lydia. I couldn't have. Batman did it.  
  
I didn't shove my son out there. He admired Batman. Batman made him want to go out there.  
  
I didn't leave my wife when she was dying, or miss every significant event in my children's lives. I had to go be Batman.  
  
It's all Batman's fault. 


	13. Infine

As I sit here, having finally said what I've been thinking my whole life, I only remember something I read a long time ago in some book: Losing all hope is freedom.  
  
It could be true. Then again losing all hope could mean that you're trapped forever because you have no will to be free.  
  
It's kind of a contradictory statement.  
  
I've lost all hope, but I don't know if I'm free or trapped.  
  
Jake spends about a half hour in silence, either wandering around the room or watching me or just staring at various objects.  
  
"You're wrong." He finally says. I scoff. That's about all the kid can tell me- I'm wrong, wrong, always wrong.  
  
I might be wrong, but I know exactly what I'm talking about.  
  
"You can't blame Batman for all that. You can't blame him for everything." Who else is there to blame? I can't bring myself to hate Wayne, and I can't bring myself to get angry with him for any of it. There's no one else to point the finger at.  
  
"Why not? Tell me whose fault it is then. If not Batman then who?"  
  
"Fine. For example, you could blame everything on your wife. She had the son that made your life a whole lot more complicated, she fought with you until it pushed you to hit her and pushed your son off a building, and then she died, leaving you alone."  
  
I feel mixed up. Horribly mixed up, like I don't even know who I want to blame anymore.  
  
"How could you even think of blaming Lyd-"  
  
"I said for example, Mr. McGinnis." Jake interrupts abruptly. "The real person at fault here is you." Yeah. This kid will make a GREAT psychologist. Tell your patient that it's all his fault.  
  
I almost laugh again.  
  
"Me?" The kid gets angry again.  
  
"Yeah, you! Wake up, McGinnis!" Wow. Haven't been called that in a while. "YOU are Batman! Batman is not a separate entity! He's not some darker side of you that you can blame every time something goes wrong! He's you."  
  
I start to get that feeling you have after being socked in the stomach repeatedly. I feel the fear you get when you know the scales are being tipped out of your favor, that your whole carefully constructed world is ready to fall down around you.  
  
"You can keep blaming everyone in the world for the woes of your life," Jake continues, "Say that outside factors caused everyone to die, caused you to have to miss your life. But you didn't miss your life. You've lived it, just like everyone else. Like everyone else you've had to make sacrifices and choices, and barely any of them were easy ones. And you're the one that made them, not Bruce Wayne, not your wife, not your children, and not Batman."  
  
If you believe in something long enough, if you spend your life constantly reaffirming that everything is because of one thing, it eventually becomes fact, not fiction. At least to you.  
  
Is this supposed to make me feel better? That the downfall of my life is not, in fact because of Wayne-Powers and Batman and my devotion to both, but simply because of ME?  
  
I can't reply. I can't say anything. I have no language left.  
  
"We're all responsible for our own actions, Terry. No one makes our choices for us." Jake finishes, rubbing his forehead as if he's exhausted.  
  
Like all good defining moments in life, the realization just presents itself plainly, like it was lying there all the time and I just kept looking past it.  
  
I chose to be Batman. Obligation, responsibility, and pressure are outside factors. In the end, I made the choice.  
  
I see myself smashing things in the cave, screaming in rage that Wayne could have left it to me, and I wonder how I could have done it, how I could have blamed him when I was the one that begged to do it.  
  
You live long enough and you forget how things started. You hold a grudge for years and by the end of it you can't even remember why you started holding it.  
  
How could I forget that I'm the one that started this whole thing? That even after I got revenge on Dad's killers, I'm the one that had to convince Wayne and was elated when I was finally trusted to be Batman?  
  
I still can't speak, too overrun with my long-held hatred and my long- forgotten decisions.  
  
"Maybe I'm wrong." Jake starts again, looking like he's a hundred years old. "Maybe you're right, and you've just been loaded with nothing but pressure on all fronts your entire life and you never really chose any of this. But there's no kind of obligation that would make someone keep doing something they hated for this long. The only thing that could make you keep doing it despite everything that happened to you is that you loved doing it."  
  
That's the only way you can keep going. If you've lost everything, the only thing that will make you keep going is wanting and loving what you do. Knowing that you still have a job to do.  
  
"No. You're right." I finally say.  
  
I still have a job to do. 


	14. Coda

There's nothing like the air in Gotham.  
  
Environmental activists, politicians, and any normal civilian would argue that it's just pollution, that it's harmful and toxic to the lungs.  
  
I breathe in deeply. How could you not love the air here? That thickness, that underlying scent of thousands of people working and resting, living and dying.  
  
Hard to believe that I almost wanted to deprive myself of all of it, that I was entirely willing to die the same death Wayne did, lock myself away.  
  
Of course, Wayne didn't really die. He was more on a hiatus from life. That is, until I came along.  
  
I stroll along the rooftops, just taking in the sight of all the stars in the sky, the noise of the city that never really gets quiet no matter how late at night it is.  
  
He'd never have admitted it to me. Oh no, not Wayne. He would never have admitted it, but I saved that old man. He would've just faded away, lost and forgotten, but I came along and I gave him life again. Wayne was only truly alive when he was out here, doing what he loved the most.  
  
I might've chosen this when I was young and still on the hero-worship trip, but I remember that I never questioned it. Not once. Even though the adventure and the excitement are long past, I still feel that sugar high, that intense rush when you're winning or you've won or you know you're not going to fail.  
  
I'm not going to fail, or quit. Ever again.  
  
There's nothing but steady breathing in my ear. You'd think that the kid, Jake, with all his high-and-mighty attitude and his cockiness would be informing me in a authoritative tone exactly what's going on in Gotham and where I'm needed, criticizing me from the comfort and safety of the cave without actually being out here and doing it. But the kid is silent; humbled by his own ignorance and ready to learn whatever I'm willing to let him pull out of me.  
  
He won't touch the suit, and I wouldn't let him anyways. It's mine. This is a right you have to earn, a privilege you have to work for, and a sacrifice you have to be willing to make.  
  
This suit, this job is mine. I don't feel like I live in Wayne's shadow, like I'm just his heir, like I'm constantly measuring up to him anymore. I'm my own kind of Tomorrow Knight.  
  
Sure, it costs lives. And not always in the physical sense.  
  
Sure, it's taxing on the body. Both physically and emotionally.  
  
Sure, you might at times curse it and love it at the same time.  
  
But it's what I'm meant to do. It's what I've chosen to do. I get to save the lives of hundreds. Yes, they're strangers, but we were all strangers at one point. I doubt that if I was just plain Terry McGinnis, I would let someone on the street get hurt just because they were a stranger either.  
  
I've still got years left. I'm damn lucky that I woke up out of my doubts and sorrows before they made me immobile for life.  
  
I step to the edge of building, not unlike Ben did a long time ago. He did what he did to save lives too, the lives most important to him, the lives of his parents. Wayne did this to honor his. I do it so no one who follows me will have to save them or honor their memory.  
  
I spread my arms and take one step forward. I fly.  
  
I'm Batman.  
  
END  
  
******************************************************************* I thank you one last time for all your reviews, feedback, praise, suggestions, and criticisms. I hope you enjoyed this novel, it's my magnum opus to date!  
  
Good luck to all the other writers out there. And I doubt this is the end of me ;-) 


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